Yes, and I was just looking at DESE's law too. Honestly, if you dont' go around trash talking the school and it's obvious that you're a responsible parent, you shouldn't have a problem. The school used to refer people to me sometimes and I could always tell who was going to be responsible (the ones who weren't mad at the school!) so the school would leave them alone if I put in a good word for them. Once they did call DFS on a family though, b/c it was a single father raising his kids, but he'd asked me all kinds of questions about microscopes and testing and how do you know they're learning, so DFS and the school left them alone and last I heard, when the kids went back to school they were very much ahead. I just don't think DESE wants the hassle any more than we do, and it's pretty obvious to everyone when people aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

Horror story: I had a cousin who was getting a divorce from his wife and when he went over to her house one day, he found out that the entire HS curriculum was TV and listening to the entire Rush Limbaugh radio program. That wasn't MO though.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Mark Twain